Tools

Avaya Builds Collaboration-Enabled Applications

By Adrian Bridgwater, October 18, 2013

Hub for integrating multi-channel unified comms into new applications

Avaya is a name we know well, but one we hear comparatively little from in terms of the firm's software application development expertise. To redress the balance here, the company has just announced what it is lauding as a breakthrough in communications-enabled applications development. The Avaya Aura Collaboration Environment development platform has been engineered and created to make it easy to tailor collaboration applications to support virtually any role and any task in any vertical.

In basic terms, this is a means of simplifying how communications or collaboration is embedded into enterprise business applications. Avaya argues that until now, "weaving" collaboration or communication capabilities into examples such as a medical patient monitoring application or a home insurance adjuster application could take upwards of six months.

This software is built with middleware-like functionality; by abstracting the complexity of the communications and collaboration engines, Avaya says it removes the needs for deep communications expertise that these systems generally have required in the past.

On this new development platform, applications deployed are automatically scalable, highly available, and secure; applications are cloud-ready and a snap-in model enables rapid solution development and repeatability.

"Companies have been actively interested in getting more value out of communication and collaboration investments, but until now were limited by the complexity and specialized skill set needed to combine them with other applications and processes. We've just eliminated those challenges. I believe we're on the threshold of a whole new age of creativity and innovation in collaboration as companies begin to understand what's now possible with Avaya Aura Collaboration Environment," said Gary E. Barnett, senior vice president and general manager, collaboration, Avaya.

A common set of methods are used for voice, video, email, and SMS — and developers can build and test applications on a virtual instance of the Avaya Aura platform.

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